Analysis of Infernal Affairs

Scenes from Infernal Affairs starting at 37 minutes and 40 seconds into the film. Yan goes to visit his shrink, Lee Sum Yee. The scene starts with traffic on the street and pans up with a canted shot of Yan in an enclosed walkway on the phone. The next scene is Yan sleeping in the psychiatrist's office and then having a discussion about his visits and being a cop. The final scene is Lau outside watching a superior officer drive golf balls into the water.

A repeated motif in the film is, "I'm a cop," and how that can mean anything. The main characters are both cops yet Yan and Lau are inverses of one another. Lau is real gangster pretending to be a cop; Yan a real cop pretending to be a gangster. Being a cop is meaningless without context, the film creates this context by matching the outward appearance to how they should be perceived and treated in the film and by the viewer. Thus when Lau is framed visually he is open, free, and comfortable. In contrast Yan is enclosed, given a path or limited mobility, and pacing like a caged animal.

In the walkway scene we see Yan on his way to the psychiatrist. The camera moves up from the street to show us this. It starts on street level to draw attention to the fact Yan has nowhere to go. The camera slowly moves up to Yan who we can hardly see. The shot is tilted and does a poor job of following Yan. It's slight movements to the right only hit that it may or may not follow him. The focus of the is the structure containing him not Yan at all. This is in direct contrast to how Lau will be shown in the final scene.

The cut closer in is aggressive and quick. The camera is uninterested with Yan and wants this over quickly. When Yan finally stops moving he does so on a vertical line splitting him in two. Up until this point we are supposed to feel like Yan is a criminal because of the camera work and editing, or lack of editing. He is talking concerned for his safety and we get to see no expression until almost have of the scene is over. The film does not care about criminals and neither does society. A woman passes behind Yan and stares at him like you would a person you worried about robbing you. Then he stops in the vertical line to remind us of his dual nature. Outwardly he may be a criminal, but he is still a cop as he will remind us.

The fade to the next scene which is Yan sleeping is a switch from the aggressive quick editing and cinematography of the last scene. Since we've been reminded of his dual nature he is now shown in a more favorable light. The entire time he is asleep there are only soft fades and slow cuts. This is ended by an abrupt cut to Dr. Yee and the alarm going off. Ending the relaxing visual scene and Yan's sleep. Once awake he gets up and enters the room. The shot goes from Yan shoulders up to the entire wooden doorway, part of the wall and the room Yan is still in. It is also from above Yan, which gives you a strange angle, because we are not looking from the doctors point of view. This shot is trying to keep Yan out of the office because if he were invited or welcomed into the shot it would be at a more agreeable frame. By shooting more of the room the shot tries to keep him in the same place and reinforce how undesirable he is because of the image he has no choice, but to project.

Criminals are often considered troubled hence why they turn to crime. Yet here is a cop who is troubled, but is not a criminal. Yet even living as a gangster is causing him distress in the same manner it would a real criminal. He even jokes about schizophrenia- either a Freudian slip or a clever pun. Yet in contrast Yan looks like the perfect officer and is treated as such. He feels none of the same pains Yan does, but he is a real gangster. The troubles Lau has with himself are academic not life threatening. This means that who you are depends little on how you see yourself, but more on how others see you.

Yan asks the doctor what she thinks of him because it does not matter what he thinks. His outward appearance carries more weight than how he should be perceived. This goes for both the characters in the movie and the people. If Lau was shot pinned up in strange shots and rushed by the camera we would never even consider him a good cop, but with his visual display both characters seem to get equal pull in the wrong directions. He tells her he is a cop because he can only feel like one if other people do as well. Lau does not have to be a flaming criminal because he knows he is, but in his mind that is completely separate from his work as a cop. Lau's being a cop is just as strongly enforced as Yan's being a criminal.

Even when he tells Dr. Yee that he is a cop, in the shot the lamp is separating Yan from her. They are also never shown together in this series of events the cut back and forth. This still leaves the impression that he can never really be a cop until he looks the part. The old saying holds true even when we know it to be wrong because our schema for logic is constructed as such, "If it walks like a duck, talks like a duck...."

When Yan stands to leave he is framed in the doorway as if he is being pushed out of the office by the shot. As he leaves the tranquility of his getting to feel like a cop, matching of course tranquil music, is shattered by the smack of a golf swing. This brings us over to the other side effectively because any time Yan gets to comfortable it is disrupted by something else. We go from very confined spaces to the wide open horizon with huge beautiful clouds. The men golfing are just twigs compared to the cityscape and sky.

This is the prime example of Lau's freedom, he can go anywhere: sky, ocean, ground, etc. He is not hindered in any way. When we cut to Lau he is relaxed looking off in the distance with his perfect suit on and a back drop of a building and more perfect clouds. He is far above the building this could be a on a campaign poster if he was running for office. The angle of the shot is slightly lower than him so he seems to be looking down at us. Compared to us peering in pacing in his cage suspended above a busy street this is majestically tranquil. Lau is shown and though to be a good cop so he is treated as such no matter what else he may be.

We finally get a close up of Lau after he has learned of his promotion and processed the information that he will be looking for himself he gives himself a small grin. Skyscrapers are now crowed behind him, but he still is framed above them. When he is told to spruce up a bit for TV the sun, what we can assume is the sun, is directly behind his head giving him the halo effect. All this imagery evokes an honest, hardworking, dedicated, happy cop a glamour shot of Lau. He then takes a swing and we are pushed out into the horizon just as the senior officer tells him to broaden his horizons. Knowing of course that they could not be any broader.

The effect of staying above the shoulders to Lau gives a personal reading of him. As if to say we want to know things about Lau, but we know all we need to know about Yan. If their roles were reversed outward appearance would still dictate attention given by the camera. Close shots of Yan are limited to him at the desk because he is about to reveal that he is a cop. We do not need to be told Lau is a cop because he beams important authority figure. They are both cops, but how they are shown greatly affect the reading. Lau is still shown as the hero even if he is one of the bad guys. This context of selective framing, editing and cinematographic elements all come together to paint to different pictures of men who are supposed to fall under the same category of being a cop. Yet since they are shown in such different lights we cannot help, but get slanted perceptions of them. Almost as if they are shown as the characters in the movie would see them. Being a cop is shown as a vague and dicey concept that has no clear answer, but the effect the visual display has on these characters makes the concept even harder to read into.